Below is important message fom Cindy Sheehan, a fearless champion for peace who lost her son Casey in combat in Iraq last year. Cindy has offered to deliver all of the signatures we have collected on our OutOfIraq.org petition so far - including your signature. Please forward this message to your friends so Cindy can deliver 100,000 signatures to George Bush on Saturday.

Bob Fertik

Dear Friends and Supporters,

George Bush said speaking about the dreadful loss of life in Iraq in August: (08/03/05): "We have to honor the sacrifices of the fallen by completing the mission." "The families of the fallen can be assured that they died for a noble cause."

In reaction to these two assinine and hurtful statements, members of Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP) are going to George's vacation home in Crawford, Tx this Saturday, August 6th at 11:00 am to confront him on these two statements.

1) We want our loved ones' sacrifices to be honored by bringing our nation's sons and daughters home from the travesty that is Iraq IMMEDIATELY, since this war is based on horrendous lies and deceptions. Just because our children are dead, why would we want any more families to suffer the same pain and devastation that we are?

2) We would like for him to explain this "noble cause" to us and ask him why Jenna and Barbara are not in harm's way, if the cause is so noble.

3) If George is not ready to send the twins, then he should bring our troops home immediately. We will demand a speedy withdrawal.

GSFP will be joined by members of Veteran's for Peace (VFP), Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Code Pink, and Crawford Peace House.

We GSFP members will not leave until we get answers from George Bush. We deserve and expect him to welcome us with answers to as why our loved ones are dead.

Every worker for peace, every worker for justice, every person who wants our country back are welcomed to join us on Saturday. Show George Bush that we mean business. Be there to support us family members who have already been through so much. We are fighting for our country, our world, especially the children.

Crawford is about 2 hours from Dallas where the VFP Convention is being held this weekend. There will be car pools from the convention.

HONOR OUR LOVED ONES' SACRIFICES: BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!!!!

Bring water and hats...we plan on staying until we are arrested or satisfied with the answers. (I am betting on jail).

CRAWFORD, Tex. - President Bush draws antiwar protesters just about wherever he goes, but few generate the kind of attention that Cindy Sheehan has since she drove down the winding road toward his ranch here this weekend and sought to tell him face to face that he must pull all Americans troops out of Iraq now.

Ms. Sheehan's son, Casey, was killed last year in Iraq, after which she became an antiwar activist. She says she and her family met with the president two months later at Fort Lewis in Washington State.

But when she was blocked by the police a few miles from Mr. Bush's 1,600-acre spread on Saturday, the 48-year-old Ms. Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., was transformed into a news media phenomenon, the new face of opposition to the Iraq conflict at a moment when public opinion is in flux and the politics of the war have grown more complicated for the president and the Republican Party.

Ms. Sheehan has vowed to camp out on the spot until Mr. Bush agrees to meet with her, even if it means spending all of August under a broiling sun by the dusty road. Early on Sunday afternoon, 25 hours after she was turned back as she approached Mr. Bush's ranch, Prairie Chapel, Ms. Sheehan stood red-faced from the heat at the makeshift campsite that she says will be her home until the president relents or leaves to go back to Washington. A reporter from The Associated Press had just finished interviewing her. CBS was taping a segment on her. She had already appeared on CNN, and was scheduled to appear live on ABC on Monday morning. Reporters from across the country were calling her cellphone.

"It's just snowballed," Ms. Sheehan said beside a small stand of trees and a patch of shade that contained a sleeping bag, some candles, a jar of nuts and a few other supplies. "We have opened up a debate in the country."

Seeking to head off exactly the situation that now seems to be unfolding, the administration sent two senior officials out from the ranch on Saturday afternoon to meet with her. But Ms. Sheehan said after talking to the officials - Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and Joe Hagin, a deputy White House chief of staff - that she would not back down in her demand to see the president.

Her success in drawing so much attention to her message - and leaving the White House in a face-off with an opponent who had to be treated very gently even as she aggressively attacked the president and his policies - seemed to stem from the confluence of several forces.

The deaths last week of 20 Marines from a single battalion has focused public attention on the unremitting pace of casualties in Iraq, providing her an opening to deliver her message that no more lives should be given to the war. At the same time, polls that show falling approval for Mr. Bush's handling of the war have left him open to challenge in a way that he was not when the nation appeared to be more strongly behind him.

It did not hurt her cause that she staged her protest, which she said was more or less spontaneous, at the doorstep of the White House press corps, which spends each August in Crawford with little to do, minimal access to Mr. Bush and his aides, and an eagerness for any new story.

As the mother of an Army specialist who was killed at age 24 in the Sadr City section of Baghdad on April 4, 2004, Ms. Sheehan's story is certainly compelling. She is also articulate, aggressive in delivering her message and has information that most White House reporters have not heard before: how Mr. Bush handles himself when he meets behind closed doors with the families of soldiers killed in Iraq.

The White House has released few details of such sessions, which Mr. Bush holds regularly as he travels the country, but generally portrays them as emotional and an opportunity for the president to share the grief of the families. In Ms. Sheehan's telling, though, Mr. Bush did not know her son's name when she and her family met with him in June 2004 at Fort Lewis. Mr. Bush, she said, acted as if he were at a party and behaved disrespectfully toward her by referring to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting.

By Ms. Sheehan's account, Mr. Bush said to her that he could not imagine losing a loved one like an aunt or uncle or cousin. Ms. Sheehan said she broke in and told Mr. Bush that Casey was her son, and that she thought he could imagine what it would be like since he has two daughters and that he should think about what it would be like sending them off to war.

Asked about Ms. Sheehan's statements, Trent D. Duffy, a spokesman for the White House, said Sunday: "The president knows one of his most important responsibilities is to comfort the families of the fallen. That is why he has personally met with and grieved with hundreds of families who have lost a loved one who made the ultimate sacrifice. We can only imagine how painful and difficult it must be for a mother to lose her son. Our hearts and prayers are always with the moms and dads and spouses and children of those who have fallen."

It is not clear how the White House will handle Ms. Sheehan. Mr. Bush usually comes and goes from the ranch by helicopter, but he might have to drive by her on Friday, when he is scheduled to attend a Republican fund-raiser at a ranch just down the road from where Ms. Sheehan is camped out. She will no doubt get another wave of publicity on Thursday, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice join Mr. Bush at the ranch to discuss the war.

This is a radio show on our local university station cfuv.uvic.ca monday at 5 pm PST. Chris Cook is the host and he writes also for PEJ news -www.pej.org

From the beaches of Iwo Jima to the desert sands of Iraq, American anti-war veterans met last week at the annual Veterans for Peace convention. The meeting was highlighted by the address of Cindy Sheehan, the founder of Gold Star Families for Peace. Sheehan, the mother of a soldier son killed in Iraq last year, issued a challenge to “the murdering bastard, George Bush” to explain why, after every “justification” his administration cited as good cause to invade and occupy Iraq has proven false, her son died.

She’s gone further, leading a protest camp outside the gates of Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch to wait his answer. Mike Ferner is a writer, and veteran member of Veteran’s for Peace and has written a piece about Cindy Sheehan’s case. He’s also a past Coordinator for the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy, and has made two trips to Iraq, one just prior to the invasion with the peace organization, Voices in the Wilderness and again as a freelance writer during the occupation. His experiences there are the basis of a forthcoming book.

“That lying bastard, George Bush, is taking a five-week vacation in time of war,” Cindy Sheehan told 200 cheering members of Veterans For Peace at their annual convention in Dallas last Friday evening. She then announced she would go to Bush’s vacation home in nearby Crawford, Texas and camp out until he “tells me why my son died in Iraq. I’ve got the whole month of August off, and so does he.”

Sheehan left the VFP meeting on Saturday morning and is now in Crawford with a couple dozen veterans and local peace activists, waiting for Bush to talk with her. She said in Dallas that if he sends anyone else to see her, as happened when national security adviser Steve Hadley and deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin did later that day, she would demand that “You get that maniac out here to talk with me in person.”

She told the audience of veterans from World War Two to today’s war in Iraq, that the two main things she plans to tell the man she holds responsible for son Casey’s death are “Quit saying that U.S. troops died for a noble cause in Iraq, unless you say, ‘well, except for Casey Sheehan.’ Don’t you dare spill any more blood in Casey’s name. You do not have permission to use my son’s name.”

“And the other thing I want him to tell me is ‘just what was the noble cause Casey died for?’ Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East. We’re not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT Act. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism,” she exclaimed.

“There, I used the ‘I’ word – imperialism,” the 48 year-old mother quipped. “And now I’m going to use another ‘I’ word – impeachment – because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.”

As the veterans in Dallas rose to their feet, Sheehan said defiantly, “My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don’t owe you a penny...you give my son back and I’ll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we’ll put this war on trial.”

The co-founder of Gold Star Mothers for Peace objected to hearing that her son was among the soldiers lost in Iraq. “He’s not lost,” she said tearfully. “He’s dead. He became an angel while I was sleeping.”

She railed against the notion expressed by officials in the Bush administration that bringing the troops home now would dishonor the sacrifice of those who have died. “By sending honorable people to die, they so dishonor themselves. They say we must complete our mission…but why would I want one more mother to go through what I have, just because my son is dead?”

The Vacaville, California resident said she first heard of Veterans For Peace in early May last year, during a CNN report about an exhibit of white crosses arranged in rows in the Santa Barbara beach. The exhibit was organized by VFP Chapter 54 to memorialize each U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. Her son had died the month before. “I decided there was only one place I wanted to be on Mother’s Day that year, and it was Santa Barbara,” she told the VFP members in Dallas.

Retired Special Forces Sgt. and VFP member, Stan Goff, today initiated a “Talk to Cindy” campaign to get Bush to meet with Sheehan. Contact information for the White House is: (202) 456-1111 or comments@whitehouse.gov

Tiananmen Ranch
James Moore
The Huffington Post
A close friend of mine went cycling with President Bush on Crawford Ranch last year and described a focused, relentlessly aggressive man on a mountain bike. Bush hammered out a hilly 18 mile course and left behind the guests and secret service agents trying to keep pace with his frenetic pedaling. There was nothing but him and the bike and the road and the pound of his heart. Good athletes are like this. Decent presidents are not.

Most endurance athletes discover that their minds, stimulated by endorphins released through exercise, tend to wander across a landscape of subjects. And when you find one that is engaging or significant, solutions and sensitivities unknown are suddenly discovered. That's why I wonder how the president can hit the trails of Prairie Chapel or even linger over his morning coffee and not be fixed on the unrelenting grief and resolve of Cindy Sheehan. She is becoming the symbol of our American Tiananmen.

I met Cindy Sheehan this time last year when she was trying to decide what to do about the loss of her son. We were strangers when we spoke on the phone but she was as honest as she was angry. Before a news conference at the National Press Club, she stood in an anteroom holding a large color poster of her smiling boy and she ran her fingertips over his mouth as though he were alive and could feel this affection. In that moment, I hated my president. And I hate having to hate anyone or anything.

A group of us went to dinner that night across the river in Arlington and Cindy asked me about all the years I had spent being a reporter and all of the sadness and loss I had encountered. She wanted to know what it was like years later for the mothers and fathers and siblings of soldiers I had written about and how they had adjusted or if they ever did. I had to tell her and her daughter sitting across from me that I never met anyone who had reached a point of total acceptance. The most vivid memory I had was of an 82-year-old Texas man whose oldest brother was one of nine boys from the tiny farming village of Praha who left for World War II. All nine of them died in different theaters of battle in the final year. But this 82 year old man said he was still expecting his big brother, who had died over sixty years ago, to come walking in the door looking like he had the day he left.

There are things worth fighting for. And there are even some worth dying for. But Iraq is not one of them. And none of us asked enough questions when it came time to send the Casey Sheehan's of the country into the desert hell of Iraq. More of us ought to be asking the questions now because it is just as important now as it was the day the war was launched. But we at least have Cindy Sheehan to do our asking. There are mothers' sons out there who will live full lives because the pressure being created by Cindy Sheehan will accelerate the end of this absurd American involvement in Iraq.

In every standoff there comes a time when the tide will turn in one direction. In our culture, these moments are palpable because a complicated question has been rendered into a simple confrontation between the just and the unjust, the big guy and the little guy, the powerful and the weak. And we all know who Americans choose in those kinds of fights. Cindy Sheehan, with her soft voice and steely determination, has given us a simple choice. We can stand with a mother who doesn't want other mothers to suffer the way she is suffering; or we can side with a president who offers us platitudes instead of exit strategies and unfounded optimism instead of honest logic. I'm on Cindy's side.

I choose to believe that Cindy Sheehan is proving to us again that America still functions as a democracy. Power and the presidency are still accountable to the Cindy Sheehan's of our country. She is helping a lot of otherwise disconnected people realize that this president has made a mistake with Iraq and his refusal to acknowledge that mistake is leading to more death. And I am certain that Casey is proud of his mother.

Every other American ought to be, too.

This is the classic Diva and Goliath scenario. I wish I could be there too. What with your trumped up drug laws and a mere pot possession charge from the early 90's, I can't participate. As an alien I am a target, but so what. Better to get out a message and a stance than to sit on your laurels and play dead. Cindy is a typical American who found out too late what acceptance of the system and sacrifice to ideals really means to our power elite.

Don't let yourselves be fooled. Get out and give up your life for YOUR ideals of fairness and equality, not theirs- and you won't have to make a statement and a stand when it is too late.